YouTube Pilot Targets Schools that Block Access

A recently announced YouTube pilot program, YouTube for Schools, is focused on putting a limited amount of educational content back in schools that currently block access to the site.

The program is accessible as a network setting that administrators can turn on to grant access only to the hundreds of thousands of videos currently catalogued on YouTube EDU. Many of the videos were created by the education portal's more than 600 partners, like the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile.

The library is subdivided into 300+ playlists broken out by subject and grade level. Teachers are also encouraged to suggest their own education playlist.

"We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or cute cat video, or a video that wasn’t appropriate for students," wrote Program Manager Brian Truong on the YouTube blog. "While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece."

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